Valerian

Didn't know this existed until a few days ago when I saw a poster for it, was it any good? Trailer looked interesting

I find it hard to believe you missed all the bad press it got. If anything it got more bad press than marketing.

Still I found it very enjoyable, and certainly better than all the shit I've seen this summer. It's no 5th Element, but it's the closest thing to it in the last 20 years.

It's worth watching if only for the intro and the first major scene. From there it kinda goes down hill, but it's coming down from pretty fucking high. It got terrible promo though, and then burgers would rather watch shitty movies I guess.

I loved everything about the aliens, and the space world, but it focuses more on Valerian and his partner.
And they kinda suck because of the actors.

It is good. It got trashed by critics largely because it is essentially a foreign film which Americans aren't used to.

I agree. I found it very enjoyable in spite of some obvious flaws. I also think it deserves credit for being fairly unique for a large budget blockbuster, I can garuntee that the next star wars movie won't have anything half as original as what's in valerian

>I find it hard to believe you missed all the bad press it got.
Unless you are a sad faggot who browses the internet 24/7 cos you have no meaning in your life (this is me), then you wouldn't have known this movie existed at all.

Because it's actually an indie movie.
Everyone's called it the most expensive indie movie ever.

>Everyone's called it the most expensive indie movie ever.
It's the most expensive movie ever I believe. No one in Hollywood has ever spent that much on 1 movie. LOTR was more than half of the price this cost.

I check the NYT every morning, it got a couple articles about being the biggest French movie ever, and a negative review.

Really, you couldn't miss it, but then clearly most people didn't even bother reading those reviews for a movie they've never heard about through any other means. It's generally bad news.

>reading the newspaper
hardly anyone does that

>indie
Well it's produced by Luc Besson's own production company, EuropaCorp, so in a way it's self-produced, but EuropaCorp isn't quite Besson's garage band anymore, it's now pretty fucking huge, and the biggest in France without a doubt.

Though it cost 180 million €, which is pretty fucking big, but just on par with most capeshit, with big franchises like Star Wars, Harry Potter and stuff being way above that.

most people don't bother reading any reviews, they prefer to base their movie taste of a picture of a tomato and a percentage

>Unless you are a sad faggot who browses the internet 24/7
>reading the newspaper

So this is why Valerian failed: people don't go on the internet nor read newspapers anymore.

>So this is why Valerian failed: people don't go on the internet nor read newspapers anymore.
Yes this is why. No posters or bilboards around said to go and see Valerian (a book or comic no one knows exists unless you are French).

They shouldn't have named it after an herbal root that helps with sleeplessness.

>It got trashed by critics largely because it is essentially a foreign film which Americans aren't used to.

Critics and americans loved Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Maybe if you weren't underage you would remember this.

>It's the most expensive movie ever I believe.

Avatar cost $500 million, so no. Even Titanic cost more, especially when adjusted for inflation.

>>So this is why Valerian failed:

Because it was a shit film with God awful casting.

>Americans had a positive reaction to 1 foreign film in a (then) popular genre nearly exclusively comprised of foreign films
>This is the same as a different take on a genre which is popular in Hollywood right now.

>was it any good
Hmm...
>co-stars HORRIBLY miscast
>cringy dialogue, especially during scenes supposedly romantic
>huge range of quality in the CG effects, very much on the bad side
>Rihanna in there for no real reason since blaqpipo don't watch science fiction
>feels 20 minutes too long
>ruined any chance of this franchise getting a better adaptation someday (which most fans lament most of all)
It's on the very low end of mediocre. The story is kind of interesting when they're in Big Market, but the movie goes back in the toilet as soon as John Goodman's laserproof-dog thing falls off.

Incidentally, I kept waiting for John Goodman to show up again, but the hand-wringing the character did wasn't foreshadowing at all. Besson has truly lost it and I hope his Chinese investors are flaying Europa's reputation worldwide.

That's the exception, not the rule